Tumolturous Rain and Trecherous Raincoats!

Well dear friends, what adventures have we had since our last post?

Firstly, we were drawn to Magnetic Island just off the coast of Townsville. A nice haven of little bays and beaches, and it was great to spend some time catching up with Jacinta. We exlored the island a little, then drove to West Point where we were stopped all night...I missed a great photo opportunity of a sea eagle, but the other birdlife there was more than enough to keep us entertained. Kingfishers and funny lookin' birds - not sure what they were called, but gee they made a horrible noise!

The enxt day we did the Forts Walk - saw some WWII bunkers and gun mounts and the like - learnt that Townsville was actually bombed by the Japenese in 1945 - who would have thought? Also saw a koala on the track, and Caleb destroyed someones arrow that supposedly pointed to another one, but it wasn't there, so Caleb deemed it unneccesary.

Jacinta left us after that walk, and we were left to our own devices, exploring the island. A spot of fishing and relaxing on the beach, and another all-night-stop.

AFter this adventure, we went back to Townsville, hung out with Jacinta, then headed north once again. What were we to come up against next? The answer hit us pretty soon...

RAIN

Walloman Falls, the highest single-drop falls in Australia, and we got to the look out, to look out over the mist....could not see a thing. We had to walk down to the bottom (2km straight down...in the drizzle) to see them, and by the time we got back up, the mist had cleared....it was a great walk though.

The rain did not leave us, we stayed in Cardwell by the beach, and headed up to Babinda. We attempeted to climb Mt Bartle Frere, Queenslands highest peak, but, you guessed it, it was raining, and Lisa deemed it unsafe to go rock climbing in the rain. We did manage to snag a look a Josephine Falls though, which were very spectacular and thunderous.

As well as Bartle Frere we found a beautiful swimming hole at the boulders in Babinda, but we didn't exactly feel like swimming...as it was raining.

And may I add, that during all this walking in the rain, we were looking like ridiculour dweebs in bright, fluro orange raincoats...high-vis (some of Calebs power-station safety) so that if we have a flat tyre in the middle of the rain, oncoming traffic can see us...in this case, I don't think any oncoming walking traffic missed us...

All in all, it was dissappointing that we hit rain, but I would like to point out that Bartle Frere recieves 250 rain days a year, so it's not like we were terribly unlucky...

Currently, we are in Palm Cove, just north of Cairns. We have visited the Butterfly Sanctuary in Kuranda, the Ken Duncan Gallery and an Opal Mine and tomorrow we are going to check out a crocodile farm.